A blog where I post a mixture of photos that I have taken and find amusing, interesting, artistic, surprising or strange.

Wednesday, 16 October 2013

WARRNAMBOOL COASTLINE

Warrnambool is a regional centre and former port city on the south-western coast of Victoria, Australia. The City of Warrnambool local government area has a population of 33,922. Situated on the Princes Highway, Warrnambool marks the western end of the Great Ocean Road and the southern end of the Hopkins Highway.

The word Warrnambool originates from the local Indigenous Australians name for a nearby volcanic cone. It is interpreted to mean many things including land between two rivers, two swamps or ample water. The first settlers arrived in the 1840s in the Lady Bay area, which was a natural harbour.

The town was surveyed in 1846 and established soon after, the Post Office opening on 1 January 1849. During the Victorian Gold Rush, Warrnambool became an important port and grew quickly in the 1850s, benefiting from the private ownership of nearby Port Fairy. It was gazetted as a municipality in 1855, and became a borough in 1863. Warrnambool was declared a town in 1883, and a city in 1918. Post Offices opened at Warrnambool South in 1937 (closed 1973), Warrnambool East in 1946, and Warrnambool North in 1947 (closed 1975).

The coastline around Warrnambool varies widely, with beauty and terror both represented by expansive beaches, as well as the rocky Shipwreck Coast. Both are accessible and there to be enjoyed in Warrnambool's scenic coastal promenades, heritage museums and numerous activities in the city and around it.